The Indiana Hoosiers Fans' Bucket List

By Terry Hutchens and Bill Murphy

Every Indiana Hoosiers fan has a bucket list of activities to take part in at some point in their lives. But even the most die-hard fans haven't done everything there is to experience in and around Bloomington, Indiana. From visiting the campus to copying Keith Smart's jump shot to win the 1987 national championship, author Terry Hutchens and Bill Murphy provide ideas, recommendations, and insider tips for must-see places and can't-miss activities near the Assembly Hall. But not every experience requires a trip to campus; long-distance Hoosiers fans can cross some items off their list from the comfort of their own homes. Whether you're attending every home game or supporting the Hoosiers from afar, there's something for every fan to do in The Indiana Hoosiers Fans' Bucket List.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Oct 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781633199231

Terry Hutchens

Terry Hutchens is the Indiana University beat writer for CNHI Sports Indiana and in his twentieth season covering the Hoosiers. His work is syndicated in thirteen newspapers in Indiana. Hutchens is also the author of eleven books, including ten on IU sports.

Book preview

Kevin.

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Game Day

Watch It at Assembly Hall

Watch the Game in Bloomington

Soak Up the Atmosphere in Cook Hall

Watch the Game in Bloomington

Listen to Fish

See the Hoosiers Play on the Road

See the Hoosiers Play in Hawaii

2. Players and Coaches

The Hall of Famers

The Best of the Rest

And Then There Were the Coaching Legends

3. Venues and Games

Original Assembly Hall

Men’s Gymnasium

The Original Indiana Fieldhouse

The New Fieldhouse (Gladstein Fieldhouse)

Assembly Hall (Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall)

The Greatest Games

4. Traditions

Candy-Striped Warm-up Pants

The National Championship Banners

Martha the Mop Lady

The William Tell Overture

Big Heads Behind the Basket

No Names on the Backs of Jerseys

They Don’t Retire Numbers at Indiana

No Mascot Either

Hoosier Hysteria (Midnight Madness)

Senior Night

5. The Cream and Crimson

Showing Off the Cream and Crimson

Get Involved with an IU Alumni Chapter

Indiana Man Caves

Must Reads for Indiana Basketball Fans

6. The Ultimate Hoosiers Bucket List

Attend a Game at Assembly Hall

Buy Keith Smart or Christian Watford a Drink

See the Hoosiers Hang the Next National Championship Banner

Complete the Hoosier Basketball Experience

Attend a Summer Tailgate Tour Stop

Have a One-on-One Conversation with Bob Knight

Hoist a Big Head

Sit with Your Dad and Watch Indiana Win a National Title

Attend Hoosier Hysteria

Camp Out at Assembly Hall

Be Out with the 1976 Undefeated Indiana National Champions on the Night When the Final Unbeaten Team from That Particular Season Drops Its First Game

Sit Behind the Home Bench at Assembly Hall

Watch Bob Knight Roam the Sidelines at Assembly Hall

Visit the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in New Castle

Get to See Don Schlundt Play in Person

Stay in the Steve Alford All-American Inn

Visit Hoosier Gym from the Movie Hoosiers

Run on the Assembly Hall Court with the Flags at the Under-Eight-Minute Timeout

Have Lunch with Angelo Pizzo

Attend a Game in the Original Assembly Hall

About the Authors

Acknowledgments

This book has been in the works for a long time. There were a lot of times along the way when I wasn’t completely certain it would get done. Too many distractions, job changes, and life events all at one time. In the summer of 2016, however, my friend Bill Murphy entered the picture, and I finally started to believe we might get this done. Bill had written a couple of books on IU, and I have always considered him a great IU athletics historian. We have done several book signings together over the years and had always talked about someday writing a book together. We just couldn’t seem to figure out what the perfect project would be to work on. And then this came about, and it seemed like the perfect fit.

So my first thank you in the book is to Bill Murphy for his willingness to help me finish this project. I had quoted Bill in a few of my previous Indiana basketball books and used him as a resource at times on my trivia books, but it was good to find a way to get his name on the cover along with mine. Perhaps there will be the opportunity for us to do another book in the future.

I would like to thank all of the folks at Triumph Books for approaching me with the idea for this book back in 2015. When I wrote my first book about the Indianapolis Colts (Let ’Er Rip) in 1995, I worked with Tom Bast when he was with Masters Press at the time. To have come full circle and do a second book with him more than 20 years later has been a great experience.

I want to thank all of the editors and page designers on this project for their help along the way. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into publishing a book. As I’ve self-published four titles of my own now, I know exactly what is involved. It was fun to sit back, get the book written, and let someone else take on those responsibilities for a change.

Bill wanted to thank some of the man cave owners he interviewed along the way for that section of the book: Brady Evans, David Murrary, Chris Williams, and Brett White, among others, opened up their caves for Bill to see, study and enjoy. We both want to thank all of the former players, athletic department personnel, and media members whom we interviewed for this project. Bill also singled out Kate Mazelin and Ryan Murphy for their input on this manuscript. He also mentioned Indiana University for providing the inspiration for the many ideas that make up our bucket list.

Finally, we both want to thank our families for their support as we pursued another book project. This is my 11th book (12 if you count the Indiana University Basketball Encyclopedia revisions I did in 2013 and again in 2017), and I never could have envisioned I would have that many titles to my name. When I wrote the first one in 1995, I thought it was fun but I didn’t see myself doing it again. I didn’t write another one for 12 years until Coach Hep died and I wrote Hep Remembered. And then it just kind of took off. But knowing I’ve had the support of my wife of more than 30 years, Susan, my mom, Dena, in California, and my two grown sons, Bryan and Kevin, has made it all the more worthwhile.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us from the bottom of our hearts.

—Terry Hutchens

1. Game Day

If you’re like a lot of Indiana University basketball fans, IU basketball becomes the center of your universe and you just revolve around it.

IU is playing on Saturday at 4:00

pm

? Well, that can mean a number of things:

•  If you have tickets for the game, you need to start planning what time you need to leave for Assembly Hall.

•  If you’re going to a friend’s house to watch the game, you might have to figure out what snacks or drinks you’re supposed to bring.

•  If you’re going to watch the game at a bar in Bloomington, or in any city across America where IU alumni groups gather to watch the Hoosiers, you may have to determine how early you’re going to have to go in order to get the seat you want so that you can get in front of a certain television in that establishment.

•  If you’re just going to watch it in the privacy of your own living room, you may have to figure out everyone else’s schedule in your family so that you can be 100 percent focused on watching the Hoosiers.

But there may be other factors that you have to weigh, too:

•  Perhaps there’s a certain sweatshirt or IU shirt that you’ve worn every time Indiana has won a big game in recent years, and you want to make sure you have that on.

•  Maybe you’re not sure if your candy-striped warm-up pants are clean, and you may need to wash them before tipoff.

•  Maybe you have another game-day ritual that you do every game, and you’re superstitious about that sort of thing.

•  Perhaps you have to work and you can’t see the IU game, but you’re going to make sure that you set the DVR to record it so you can watch it later. You may even ask people around you to not tell you who won the game that day and just stay away from all forms of social media so that you can go home later and watch it as if it were live.

•  Maybe you’re one of those people who turns down the TV and turns up Don Fischer on game days. A lot of people have invested in a certain box that allows the radio feed and television feed to sync up during the broadcast just so they can let the harmonious sounds of Fish on the radio describe the action on the court.

But make no mistake about it, Indiana basketball is an event. It’s something you plan your calendar around. There will be some fans who may try to say that it used to be that way for them when Bob Knight was roaming the sideline, but it’s just not the same anymore. They’ll tell you that they may catch an IU game here or there, but it’s no longer the event it used to be. Our experience is that those people are beginning to fade away. It may have been 30 years since Indiana last won a national championship, but you certainly wouldn’t know it by the way Indiana fans show up whenever IU plays at home or on the road, or how the Twitterverse is alive every time Indiana has a basketball game. Indiana has a rabid fan base that is focused completely on the Hoosiers when IU takes the court.

This opening chapter takes a look at the way some people incorporate Indiana basketball into their daily lives. Which of these methods of watching Indiana basketball best describes your own personal situation?

Watch It at Assembly Hall

Think of Indiana University basketball and you picture candy-striped warm-up pants.

You think of the five national championship banners, Martha the Mop Lady, and the William Tell Overture at the under-eight- minute timeout.

You think of Branch McCracken, Bob Knight, and most recently Tom Crean. You remember the last undefeated college basketball team in history, the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers.

You think of one of the most iconic, blueblood, elite college basketball programs in America.

And you think of Assembly Hall.

For 46 years, Assembly Hall has been one of the most revered basketball arenas in the country, a place where the Hoosiers have won 84 percent of their games and where crowds of 17,400 rabid fans have made the arena a daunting atmosphere for opposing teams.

I don’t think there’s any place quite like it anywhere else in the country, said retired longtime Bloomington Herald-Times sports editor Bob Hammel. I think it’s just the configuration where it looks like its red all the way up to the ceiling on both sides. I’m not sure of any other place that I’ve been where you just really have the feeling like you’re taking on the multitude and not just the home team.

Indiana home games have always been a tough ticket, and there continues to be a waiting list for season tickets. The best chance to see Indiana play in Assembly Hall is to buy either a three-game or six-game package that is offered for games played when the students are out for Christmas break in late December and early January. IU has the largest student section in the nation in Assembly Hall, boasting 7,200 seats, and when students are on break there’s a much better opportunity for other fans to see IU play.

A three-game package in the main seating area in 2016 ran for $132 per adult. A six-game package was double that at $264.

Some think that’s a small price to pay to see games in the iconic arena.

As the venue has gotten up in years, however, and with other schools building new, sterile, state-of-the-art arenas every year, the question of what to do with Assembly Hall has loomed large.

Rebuild or renovate was the question asked in Indiana circles since the mid-1990s. Ultimately, the decision was made to preserve IU’s rich history in the building and give Assembly Hall a much-needed facelift. Eighteen months and $45 million later, the new-look Assembly Hall debuted in time for the start of the 2016–17 basketball season.

I am thrilled that this project will preserve the best home-court advantage in college basketball while also greatly enhancing the total game-day experience for every fan, player, coach, and visitor, said IU director of athletics Fred Glass the day that IU broke ground on the new building.

Eric Neuburger, IU’s associate athletic director for facilities and external alliances, said Indiana could not just simply kick an IU treasure like Assembly Hall to the curb. Preserving the iconic building made the most sense.

The building is part of our character, Neuburger said. It’s our home-court advantage. It’s an intimidating place to play in. You walk in and you look up, and you see two steep walls of fans looking down on you, and that’s like no other place. We feel like it has become the most unique basketball facility in the country, and that’s what we didn’t want to lose.

Indiana coach Tom Crean said that Assembly Hall is vital to the future of the Indiana program. All over the country, people know what an intimidating environment Assembly Hall can be, Crean said. It’s one of our greatest assets, and we’re excited to see improvements made to our legendary facility that will dramatically improve the Hoosier fan experience.

And it’s not just the IU men’s team that is benefitting from the Assembly Hall facelift but the women’s program under the direction of Teri Moren, too.

While there was a waiting list for season tickets for IU men’s basketball, fans of the women’s game in 2016 could get season tickets that were $42 for 14 home games, or $3 per ticket. Seniors over age 65 could get the same package for $1 per game. The same $14 season package was available for youth tickets under age 18.

Many believe the Indiana women’s team is clearly on the upswing, and fans have a chance to get in on the ground floor. I think with the Cook Hall practice facility and the renovated Assembly Hall, and all that we’ve done the last eight years in women’s basketball, I think our program could be a sleeping giant, said IU deputy athletic director Scott Dolson, who as of 2016 was in his 26th season working in the IU athletic department. I think we’re really close, and I’d be shocked if we don’t see our women’s basketball program consistently going to NCAA tournaments and then knocking on that door and ultimately getting those recruits and getting a Final Four and maybe hanging that banner up. I can see that happening. We’ve got the resources in place to make that happen.

Don Fischer remembers fondly the dedication game he attended at Indiana’s Assembly Hall in its inaugural season in 1971.

Bob Knight was in his first season as the Indiana coach, and Digger Phelps was making his debut as the head coach at Notre Dame. The teams met on December 18 in IU’s new basketball facility.

Final score: Indiana 94, Notre Dame 29.

Fischer has been the play-by-play voice of Indiana football and basketball for 44 seasons, beginning with the 1973–74 basketball season. But that game, he attended as a spectator. I don’t even remember how I got the ticket or why I was there, but I was working in Terre Haute at the time and came to Assembly Hall for the dedication game, Fischer said. All I remember is how magical the entire arena seemed back then, and then two years later I found myself broadcasting in that facility. And I still have the same feeling today that I did all of those years ago when I walk into Assembly Hall. It’s just a very, very special place.

The building has a storied tradition. The first event held there was a Homecoming Variety Review featuring Bob Hope and Petula Clark on October 23, 1971. Its design was based off a Cattle Auction House, and the land where it was built was originally the Faris family farm through 1950.

It was the home court of three Indiana basketball national championship teams in 1976, 1981, and 1987. Going into the 2016–17 season, IU’s all-time record at Assembly Hall was 551–106.

Through 2016, Chuck Crabb was in his 41st season working for IU Athletics. His current position is assistant athletic director for facilities. He is probably best known for being the public address announcer for Indiana basketball for the past 40 years. Chills have been known to run down the spines of IU basketball fans when Crabb announces The Indiana Hooooooooooooooooosiers!

Crabb was a junior at Indiana in 1971 when Assembly Hall opened its doors. He remembers that, when Assembly Hall was built, it was the final structure that trumpeted athletics’ relocation from the center of the Bloomington campus (Seventh Street) to the current athletics footprint that is bordered between 17th Street to the south, the bypass to the north, Dunn Street to the west, and Fee Lane to the east.

We moved to where a lot of people said was ‘halfway to Martinsville,’ Crabb said with a smile. We moved out to the edge of the bypass, and there were three structures in particular that made up the new home of athletics on our campus. It was the [Gladstein] fieldhouse that was used temporarily for basketball, it was Memorial Stadium, and it was finally the Assembly Hall in the 1971–72 season. All the sports as the program existed at that time were pretty much accommodated by those facilities.

At the time that Assembly Hall opened in 1971, Indiana athletics had a total of 10 sports. Today it has 24. But in 1971, the men’s soccer program had yet to be established (it started in the fall of 1973). Women’s athletics was added in 1975, and other sports along the way.

There’s no way to overstate the financial impact that Assembly Hall has had over the years. It has supported the existence of so many of IU’s athletic programs. Most years, Assembly Hall ranks in the top 10 nationally in average attendance. In fact, its lowest attendance average in the building’s history was still 17th nationally.

At some point, however, the big attendance wasn’t enough. In the early 2000s, IU, in search of revenue streams to help fund those programs, first introduced advertising signage into Assembly Hall.

It takes a significant amount of revenue to support a program of our size, Crabb said. And advertising done in a tasteful manner has not had an earth-shattering impact on how that building is seen. It’s been done tastefully, either with static signage or maybe an advertising bug in the corner of a video image.

For the most part the first 45-plus years of Assembly Hall came and went with very few changes. The arena got a new basketball floor in 1976 and again in 1995. In 2005 it got a new $1.99 million scoreboard/video board. But the changes to that point were very cosmetic.

That changed with the current renovation. Thanks to a $40 million gift from alumna Cindy Simon Skjodt, Indiana was able to renovate rather that rebuild. In honor of that landmark gift made by Simon Skjodt and her philanthropic organization, IU announced in 2013 it would rename Assembly Hall the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

In addition, athletics received a $5 million gift from IU alumnus Mark Cuban to establish the Mark Cuban Center for Sports Media and Technology that will be housed on the west side of the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

The renovation was able to blend the old with the new in the arena.

From the outside the most significant change is to the south lobby that has received an extreme facelift. On the interior, floors have been replaced, concession stands and bathrooms remodeled, and escalators added—four in the south lobby and two in the north. The old zig-zag ramps will still be used, but only in the north lobby.

All the seats in the arena have been replaced except for the bleachers at court level. The only part of the seats that was not replaced was the cast-iron arm rests. Everything else about the seats was replaced, and all the seats are now red. A few seats were removed to accommodate changes in press seating, but there won’t be a noticeable difference in the arena’s 17,400-seating capacity.

The Hall of Fame portraits that once hung in the lobby have been digitized and adapted into an interactive display in the south atrium. Assembly Hall also has a new video board that is three times wider and has all the bells and whistles so that fans can enjoy better replays.

There is a significant wow factor when people walk into that building, Crabb said. It’s entirely different than what they experienced for the first 45 years of the Assembly Hall.

It only takes a moment for fans to realize the difference when they enter the south lobby. I just think it’s the sheer size, Crabb said. Instead of coming in under a 12-foot-high ceiling as they come through those six entry doors on the south lobby, there is 70 feet of clear space overhead. Directly ahead of them is a connecting bridge that goes in front of the Spirit of ’76 suite. There are touchscreen LED video presentations that they see. The old arena now has a very modern look to it.

Neuburger believes the best part about the new Assembly Hall is that Indiana was able to renovate without changing the atmosphere. I think people are hit with the fact of how familiar the building is and how new it is at the same time, he said. Everything has been touched in some way but nothing anyone would have wanted to stay has been disrupted in any way. It’s still the masterpiece of a building that everyone expects to see when they come to Assembly Hall.

One major improvement has to do with restrooms in the arena. Before the renovation, there were 184 toilets in Assembly Hall. In the new Assembly Hall there are 314. The biggest percentage difference is how many restrooms there will be for women. Before the renovation, there were 123 men’s and 61 women’s toilets. In the new arena, there are 154 men’s and 134 women’s. So while the facilities for men increased by 33 percent, for women, it’s up 119 percent. In addition, there will be 16 all-gender restrooms where there were none before.

Improvements to cellular reception and Wi-Fi have also been significant in recent years. People want to sit in the arena now, pull out their smartphones, and watch the multitude of ESPN family apps or BTN apps that are available for either the game they’re watching or other games,